


Each Scar a Black Hole

by astarsdarkheart



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: (I'm so glad that's a suggested tag), Anakin cannot communicate, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Minor Injuries, a certain degree of angst, bad memories, writing experiments wrt POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 04:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11639334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astarsdarkheart/pseuds/astarsdarkheart
Summary: Scars are hidden, secret things. His pain and injuries are not for anyone but Anakin to know about. But his most recent mission left him with a cut across the eye that can't be hidden.





	Each Scar a Black Hole

**Author's Note:**

> What essentially happened here is that I saw a [meta post](http://keblava.tumblr.com/post/162679369959/time-for-a-little-discussionheadcanon-im) and my brain went running off with a fic idea. But of course because I overthink things and get way too deep into Anakin's POV the plot went walkabout in favour of expending a lot of words on Anakin's brain being Swiss cheese - like marbles on glass, I believe someone commented on SAS at some point. I like that turn of phrase.

Red-edged eyes blinked in the mirror as he bit together and tugged the meditape off his face, his whole body tense so he wouldn’t flinch at the stinging, prickling pain that left its ghost even as he bent over the sink to splash water on the raw skin. A few eyelashes had stuck to the tape. Blinking against the watering in his eyes – _watch your water_ , he’d not forgotten – he straightened up and brushed his hair aside from the fresh scar.

The skin hadn’t healed tight, _didn’t see to it soon enough_ , puckered skin scoring across the corner of his eye, the scar tissue a dirty red-brown _have to hope it fades_. A cold metal finger traced the scar’s length as he turned away from the mirror.

Padmé’s ghost presence in the Force was a faint mist, and it shivered aside from the storm clouds of him as he stepped into the lounge and slumped into a couch, head falling into his bionic hand as he sighed. She’d seen every other scar. Every tearing panic under Gardulla’s laughter, every slap and podracer injury and battle scar and blaster burn. When they’d married he’d still had the temporary arm the Temple medics had given him while they took the measurements to construct the one he had now.

He could hide all of those _but not the arm, really_ but not this new scar.

_Watch your water_. His lip caught between his teeth and he bit down as his eyes drew shut. The scar was a week old injury. No more pain, no more breaking. _Enough._

Tendons tightened in his neck, tugging his head up. The sky’s dark rosiness made Coruscant’s gleaming architecture red with the colours of sunset bleeding across it. So bright, so hot. His lightsaber clicked against a keeper on his belt as he rose to his feet. He couldn’t sit there looking like a grieving man _what is there to grieve anyway_ until Padmé got back. Two more weeks, and then he had to leave again – where for this time? The name escaped him. Speeders flew past in flickering dashes of oiled colours, well over the air speed limit.

Oh. Of course. They needed reinforcement in the traffic lanes around Eriadu. Him and Obi-Wan, _the names of heroes in the mouths of people who know nothing of war_ there to stop Grievous’ flagships blockading the entire sector. “Eriadu.” A different type of fight to what they’d been dealing with of late. Ships and cautious planned routes. Flying. It’d been a while since last time.

“What about Eriadu?”

Muscles froze, locking his gaze on the bleeding sky outside. The ghost became a warm smoke as Padmé’s slippers tapped against the floor. “Mine and Obi-Wan’s next mission. Provided there are no complications before we leave.”

“When do you leave?”

In the golden stone solitude of the apartment the words weren’t the ringing clarity of a Senator’s proclamations. “Two weeks, unless the situation grows worse.” Soft as the mist of a presence _but it’s colder these days, she’s tiring_ but he stayed still as the walls that stood either side of him like sentinels in the window. Prickles in the pink flesh over his eye. It had tugged in strange directions whenever he’d tried to smile since the skin had been torn open _so lucky that it didn’t go deeper into the socket_.

“Do you think it’ll be difficult?”

_How long did her meetings last today_ he sighed into the rose transparisteel tainted by the sunset’s mind tricks. “The fighting will be in interplanetary traffic lanes. That’s not something we’ve had to do often before. And I fly better than Obi-Wan does.”

“He’ll manage, won’t he? He’s never liked flying, but he seems to do well compared to many other Jedi. The Council would have sent someone else if they didn’t think he’d be of use.”

Such patience in such a weary tone _is that hope she’s trying to show_. He bit together against the twitch in his jaw – _enough_ , no more mind paid to that scar. “He should manage. He’s flown before. He’ll grumble. But that’s nothing new.”

She laughed, a faint murmur of humour in the hum of the city – it seeped in like a stain in fabric, a crack in transparisteel, a moment’s golden light in the red skies of bloodshed and war. How much longer now _too long, too long_ until it ended? “Perhaps that’s the way of things these days. You’ll have a couple of weeks to recuperate now, at least. Tend to any little wounds that didn’t get patched up properly while you were out in the field.”

“Mm.”

Something tightened around his throat. Took the word off his tongue too early. Did she hear the sound _hardly made a sound she can’t have noticed_ but something – something else – shuddered in the room, mist freezing into ice that hovered in the air beneath the storm cloud _it’s just a scar it’s just a scar_ as he bit together _watch your water, Ani_. Twelve years gone and he could only hear the words in his mother’s voice. _Ta vara på ditt vatten, Ani_ , the simple sing-song language of Tatooine’s lowest people.

She’d died with the side of her face cut open, eyes glassy and blood-edged as she stared up at him. The ghost of her touch made him cold _please, enough_ and he had to fight to keep his hands still, to not reach up to the hot ghost of fury that traced the tear tracks down the side of his face. They’d shared scars since his first two years of life. Would he fall into the depths of the storm cloud of the Force around him with the same pattern _rivers of red why do I remember her blood before her face_ of cuts scattered across skin stretched thin by years of strain?

“Ani.” Still soft, the mist aglow in the apartment _can’t let this storm cast a shadow_ as the spark of light in the darkening room moved closer. “Why won’t you look at me?”

He bit together, _watch your water_ , bowed his head. “The sunset is colourful.” Deepening rose to red shades now _like a river of pain running dry_ that would soon fall to darkness.

A hand on his left arm. “You must be exhausted.”

“So are you.” He turned his head a fraction _no further I can’t push my pain on her_ as she leaned her head against his shoulder _she can’t get hurt_. No scars for the angel. “How long have you been awake today?”

She shrugged, her shoulder jabbing into his side through the robe. “Not much longer than usual. I’ll be fine. Was there trouble on the way in?”

He shook his head. “The council’s having trouble with a few senators, so they weren’t in a good mood listening to my report. But nothing worse.”

“You just seem so distracted.”

He sighed as he lifted his arm _what to say that won’t make her hurt_ and put his hand – the one still of life-warm flesh and blood – on her shoulder. “It still feels like I should be out there... leading troops. It was over so quickly...” He shook his head as the words fell away, something tight in his neck taking the air from things unspoken.

She nodded, a faint smile drawing pale edges on her face as she reached a hand up to the side of his face. The storm cloud froze _forgot myself, no_ as her fingers found the tender edges of skin around the dead discoloured tissue. “Lucky for you that it wasn’t a deeper cut. It could have blinded you.”

Throat too tight for words. He nodded. Gaze away from her, from the light wrapped in the storm cloud folds of his robe _don’t know if I can protect her_ , towards the wounded sky _couldn’t protect my mother_ with its night shroud of dark cloud coming in _how long will this chaos last_ coloured searing yellow and red by the city below.

“It’s strongly coloured for such a small scar.” Soft as the light of a lone star.

“Didn’t see to it soon enough.” Raw tissue newly formed, still prickling and unfamiliar.

“Does it sting?” Her touch left a needling presence in the tender skin as her hand fell away, forcing him to blink back the water in his eyes.

He shook his head.

Everyone would see that scar _no way to hide it_ and know that he’d fought, that he’d been injured. If he was to be the hero with no fear that the holo-news networks called him _what do they know of_ _ **fear**_ he could only bear that scar and act as if he’d paid no heed to its presence _how do I put on a brave face when to smile is to tug at that scar_ and forgotten how he’d obtained it.

She smiled. “No one in the council can say you’re not putting in the effort to end this war, at least. How many of them bear any scars at all?”

How many of them bore scars in hidden places _but I can’t hide the marks this war has left_ that Padmé _no,_ _that I_ would never know about? He sighed, shook his head. Forced a chuckle that caught in his throat like a dying creature’s last gasp of air. “I’ll... get used to seeing it in the mirror.”

She nodded, the smile warming before she hid it in the sleeve of his robe. “It’s that way with all of the scars, isn’t it? They’re strange and uncomfortable to begin with, but soon they’re just part of you.”

He nodded as he folded his arms around her, the width of his robe wrapping around her like night around Coruscant’s chrome towers. Tight flesh tugged in his back. The oldest set of scars. One of Gardulla’s favourite slaves, a Twi’lek woman, had held the whip. She’d not smiled as the leather hit his back, nor when his mother had begun to cry. He’d not felt those scars for years.

As he turned his head to look out of the window, the last traces of the sun dipped below the horizon, leaving faint streams of its light below the gathering darkness of cloud to edge the city’s towers with blood red.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty impressed that LibreOffice didn't grumble more about my grammar in this here thing than it actually did, given the number of mid-sentence tangents that weren't even properly punctuated.  
> Bit of an experiment in terms of Anakin's POV, this. I've already attempted it with Anakin in varying degrees of mental composure in SAS, and then there's Watch Your Water, but this is a different thing again. I like it as a portrayal of his brain in and of itself, but I don't think it'd read that well in longer pieces unless I dialled it back hard.


End file.
